Mentor Program

FACES Northwest supports the research regarding the mentoring of autistic youth by developmentally typical peers, utilizing a framework of peer-mediated interventions (PMI). These interventions help to provide a strategy to facilitate social interactions between individuals with autism and their non-disabled peers (Odom, S.L., McConnell, S. 1993). Our program strives to train peer mentors in a systematic way to ensure they know when to initiate and how to respond to their peers with autism. In order to achieve this we utilize principals and guidelines for selecting peer mentors as outlined by Bellini (2006):

We select only socially competent peers.

We make sure peer mentors have a neutral or positive history with the individual they are paired with.

We choose peers who exhibit age-appropriate play.

We select socially responsive peers

We select peers who are likely to follow adult instructions.

We ensure the peers we select are willing to participate.

In addition to peer-mediated interventions, we also utilize Sabin?s (2006) ?The Autism Acceptance Book: Being a friend to Someone with Autism? to train and provide a reference tool to both our teaching staff as well as for the peer mentor themselves. Peer mentors will be provided an orientation and training which parents are free to attend.

During our two-month summer program we implement this peer mentor program to help facilitate interaction between our special needs youth and youth in our community. FACES Northwest believes this creates an excellent service learning opportunity for both the peers and our youth. The youth acting as mentors will be helping during activity outings throughout the community such as hiking, swimming, sledding, trips to museums, and berry picking to name a few. They will also be helping one-on-one with specific learning skills such as letter and number recognition, playing games, pre-vocational skills and helping our youth interact.

We are looking for peer mentors in our community to help out during our summer program (usually once per week). If you are a parent, teacher or person in the community who can recommend a peer mentor please contact FACES Northwest on our website and e-mail us your recommendations and contact information. After initial contact is made the forms below can be downloaded and sent to the address we will provide for you.

The FACES mentoring program not only provides support for our youth but helps to develop awareness of community resources, promotes advocacy and leaderships skills, and ultimately builds lasting friendships for all.

Bellini, S. (2006). Building Social Relationships: A Systematic Approach to Teaching Social Interaction Skills to Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Other Social Difficulties. Shawnee Mission, KS: Autism Asperger Publishing Company.